


No One Ever Said It Would Be This Hard

by TheCircusIsInTown



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: After the Fall, Angst, M/M, Minor Swearing, Post Reichenbach, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 15:26:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCircusIsInTown/pseuds/TheCircusIsInTown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He froze. As soon as the man's face came into view, the man for whom he had jumped from a building, the man whose face had changed so much in three years he was almost impossible to recognise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Ever Said It Would Be This Hard

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post http://lordkirk.tumblr.com/post/57193311793 The song is The Scientist by Coldplay, and you don't have to listen to it whilst reading, but I think it fits well.

He froze. As soon as the man's face came into view, the man for whom he had jumped from a building, the man whose face had changed so much in three years he was almost impossible to recognise. To others it still may have been John Watson, but not to Sherlock.

There was a simple, worn, wooden walking stick propped up on the far side of the table, almost hidden from sight. John's limp had most obviously returned, the same as the slight tremor in his left hand, shown by the small droplets of wine splashed around his wine glass.

His face had gotten rounder, though not because of excess eating. The muscle built from the cases had disappeared, now the only exercise John got was walking to and from the practice, which he had only returned to a few months prior. Under his empty blue eyes were large bags, not noticeably dark, but different to the rest of his skin tone. The Post-Traumatic Stress had returned. He was still plagued with nightmares, though not of afghan soldiers, not of bombs exploding, guns firing, bodies flying. The nightmares were of John reliving the moment atop of the hospital. Watching Sherlock jump and then seeing his beaten body in a pool of crimson blood on the ground.

Sherlock understood his death would affect John, but one glance and he knew it tore the man to pieces, pieces that had no intention of being repaired. John was broken, as broken as Sherlock's body strewn across the cold London pavement.

 

He was agitated. He kept fidgeting with his tie, his napkin, his suit collar and the menu. He was unaccustomed with his surroundings, who would want to meet him in one of the most expensive restaurants in London? The message had been pushed halfway through the letterbox for him to find when he got home.

_8pm, The Savoy, Urgent Business. Don't be late._

Well here he was, waiting for God-knows-who, listening to all the chatter going on around him. John looked down to check the time, and in doing so he missed the tall figure give his coat to a waiter, he missed him ruffle his dark, unruly hair, and he missed him stop dead in his tracks just before he reached the table.

 

Sherlock straightened his back, his heart was hammering in his ears, but focusing on john rather than his internal monologue made this only slightly more bearable. Of course he could be nervous; of course his legs would feel like they would cave out from beneath him any second. But continued walking; he paused in front of the seat opposite John.

"Do you mind?"

John recognised that smooth baritone anywhere. From listening to it in the lab, as a stranger introduced himself; laughing along with it at a crime scene, Yelling along with it on a Saturday morning argument, and as he heard it every night, cracked and broken on the rooftop.

"No." John stood, his voice taut. "You're dead. I saw you. I fucking saw your broken corpse at the bottom of St Bart's." His fists clenched by his sides "What the hell are you playing at? How dare you just bloody appear after three years, ask me out to dinner, and expect everything to be okay." john's voice cracked, but he carried on.  "It's not okay Sherlock, I'm not okay, and I haven't been since you jumped off a fucking rooftop. And yet here you are, and you can't even look sorry?"

"John, please, sit back down, I-" Sherlock grappled for words, but none came to his aid.

"Stay away from me, you machine." John gripped his cane and stormed past Sherlock. He missed the empty look thrown his way. He missed Sherlock’s eyes well up with glistening remorse, and he missed the solitary tear rolling down the man's face, before dropping onto the Black lapel of his dinner jacket.


End file.
